University of Minnesota ag visionary, Forever Green Initiative founder Don Wyse dies

Don Wyse, a crop scientist and visionary of regenerative agriculture at the University of Minnesota, has died at 77.

Originally a weed scientist who joined the university in 1974, Wyse co-founded and led the Forever Green Initiative since 2012, developing a suite of new perennial and winter-hardy crops, from Kernza to pennycress, that could by century’s end cover the Upper Midwest, feeding the world, fueling airplanes, and protecting soil and water.

“Interestingly, his training was as a herbicide physiologist — a weed scientist,” said Mitch Hunter, associate director of Forever Green. “A brilliant mind, a visionary, [Wyse] saw that we need diversity back on the landscape and more and different crops that can compete with weeds and protect the soil and protect the water.”

Wyse cut a 1960s-era hippie profile ― long-haired, wearing sandals ― that sometimes left him standing out in agricultural circles known more for Carhartt and work boots. But in the 1970s, his research into weed-resistance in Roseau and Lake of the Woods Counties established an early victory on the land: a booming grass-seed industry along the Canadian border.

The early success helped cement a formula he’d follow in the coming years: bringing parties together.

“Whether it was someone working with private companies, some of it was working with legislators, Don would find himself at the center of it,” said Richard Magnusson, a farmer in Roseau County who remembered Wyse’s early research in the region decades ago.

Over the ensuing decades, Wyse built a consensus across the industry, building a bridge to new crops with commercial viability, drawing onlookers from university laboratories to corporate boardrooms.

“[Wyse] accomplished that by advancing global food security and environmental sustainability with his expertise in crop systems,” said Brian Buhr, Dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences at the U of M. “A true ‘drum major’ for food and environmental justice in the world.”

The weed-scientist-turned-regenerative-agriculture-pioneer was raised on a dairy farm in Ohio and received his doctorate from Michigan State University.

In recent years, as the Earth warms and environmentalists and farm groups seek to continue to produce food while drawing down greenhouse gas emissions, the contributions of the counter-cultural weed scientist from the University of Minnesota have been gaining attention.

A 2022 profile by the New York Times called him a “practical visionary.”

“His passion for sustainable agriculture was infectious, whether it was helping develop the grass seed industry or paving the way for ‘third crop’ production in the state,” said Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen. “Don left a lasting imprint on agriculture and Minnesota.”

This story will be updated.